A Word from Bob: As I craft today’s post, the United States and the world are in the midst of the COVID-19 virus pandemic. In addition to health and safety concerns, the world’s financial markets have been in a freefall. Clearly, these are times of suffering and trials. So, it seemed like a good time to collate biblical counseling resources that provide God’s wisdom related to dealing suffering and trials. I’ve excerpted this post from The Annual Guide to Biblical Counseling Resources: 2020 Edition. The guide provides 230 pages that collate 920 biblical counseling resources. You can read similar blog posts on:
- 23 Biblical Counseling Resources for Help with Anxiety, Fear, Panic Attacks, & Worry: http://bit.ly/23BCRAnxiety
Suffering: Booklets
Deuel, Dave. Is God Listening? What If He Doesn’t Answer?
How can we offer tenderhearted spiritual support to those affected by disability? As part of your biblical care for people with disabilities and their families, this mini-book can serve as a first response encouragement. This mini-book reminds us that God hears each cry for help, and He is not silent. He speaks to us through His Word—the Bible—and He acted to save us through the cross. Jesus offers us His unwavering presence and the promise that one day, those who trust Him will be delivered completely.
Duncan, Ligon. Does Grace Grow Best in Winter?
Few things trouble our hearts and minds like suffering. “Why is this happening? Why me? How can I get through this? Can I get through this?” God says we can, but he says more. Suffering is not merely to be endured. It comes into our lives for good reasons. Suffering affords seasons for growth in ways we would not grow otherwise. This book prepares believers for hardship when it comes their way. Learning some of the purposes for suffering, how it connects us with our Lord and his people, and what God’s Word says to us in the midst of our pain will enable us to glorify Him in the most troubling times.
Hambrick, Brad. God’s Attributes: Rest for Life’s Struggles
This study looks at sixteen attributes of God, grouped under the headings of his love, essence, wisdom, and power, to help challenge your understanding. It goes on to challenge how well you rest in each attribute (have faith and comfort in it) and emulate it in the struggles and experiences of your own life. So learn, through your struggles, about the One who gives those struggles meaning.
Kellemen, Bob. Grief: Walking with Jesus (A 31-Day Devotional for Life)
This thirty-one-day devotional booklet guides you on a journey through the gospels. Page-by-page and day-by-day, you’ll walk with Jesus as He models how to cling to the Father as He faces suffering, loss, grief, and death. Jesus is a man of sorrows, acquainted with grief, and He is your sympathetic High Priest. So, He not only models godly grieving, Jesus also grieves with you. Grief: Walking with Jesus is ideal for the person who wants to grow closer to Christ while facing life’s most excruciating losses.
Olsen, Rebecca. A New Normal: Learning to Thrive in Suffering
A car crash has left you disabled and in constant pain. You or a family member just received a serious medical diagnosis. How do you begin to piece your life together after it has been changed forever? When suffering waylays you, it doesn’t seem as if anything will be “normal” again. How do you take steps to move from surviving to thriving? Rebecca Olson walks you through the questions you may be asking of yourself and God as you process a long-term trial or a devastating loss, and she invites you to consider how your heartache, your illness, and your sorrow can be a platform for experiencing the grace of God.
Powlison, David. God’s Grace in Your Suffering
“Where is God?” There are never quick fixes or easy answers when it comes to suffering. But even when we can’t immediately see God’s hand—when the struggle is hard and painful—He is working. Weaving together Scripture, personal stories, and the words of the classic hymn “How Firm a Foundation,” Powlison brings an experienced counselor’s touch to exploring how God enters into our sufferings, helping us see God working in our particular struggles—and discover how God’s grace goes deeper than we could imagine.
Powlison, David. Why Me? Comfort for the Victimized
“Why is this happening to me? Where is God in my time of anguish?” Knowing our hearts, God has spoken powerful words of comfort. Psalm 10 is God’s Word to those who have been victimized by others. It guides people into knowing God in the midst of being violated. Powlison walks us through Psalm 10, helping us see its message of anguish and refuge. Can this ancient text help us in our pain today? Yes, because God is present and listening.
Tripp, Paul. Suffering: Eternity Makes a Difference
How hard it is to see God’s goodness in the face of tragedy and suffering. Feeling abandoned, we cry out to Him, question Him, turn away from Him, perhaps even curse Him. It may seem like He’s cheated us—we’ve done our part following Him, but He’s let us down. Tripp helps hurting people see their circumstances from an eternal perspective. Uncovering the wrong motives, faulty reasoning, and misguided conclusions that blind us to the truth of God’s love and goodness, Tripp focuses us on the grand picture of eternity.
Suffering: Books
Kellemen, Bob. God’s Healing for Life’s Losses: How to Find Hope When You’re Hurting
Are you ready for real, raw, honest, and hopeful conversation about suffering, loss, and grief—from a Christian perspective? When life’s losses invade your world, learn how to face suffering face-to-face with God. God’s Healing for Life’s Losses is the perfect gift book for those dealing with any type of loss and suffering. Biblical and relevant, each chapter includes personal reflection questions and small group discussion questions.
Keller, Tim. Walking with God Through Pain and Suffering
The question of why God would allow pain and suffering in the world has vexed believers and non-believers for millennia. Tim Keller takes on this enduring issue showing there is meaning and reason behind our pain and suffering, making a forceful case that this essential part of the human experience can be overcome only by understanding our relationship with God.
Kress, Eric, and Paul Tautges. God’s Mercy in Our Suffering: Lamentations for Pastors and Counselors
No matter what kind of suffering you face, there is life-giving hope that springs forth from our merciful God. In his loyal love and faithfulness, God comes alongside us in our suffering in order to strengthen our faith, purify our lives, and heal our hearts by centering us on Christ and the good news of the gospel. In God’s Mercy in Our Suffering, two pastors and counselors sit down beside you and warmly take you into the book of Lamentations where you will be encouraged to hope in God. Learn how to fasten the rope of your faith to the anchor of God’s unfailing love.
Kwasny, John. Suffering in 3-D: Connecting the Church to Disease, Disability, and Disorder
Suffering in 3-D is a book to guide and encourage believers to get practically involved in meaningful relational ministry to all who are suffering. As Christians, we are not to walk alone in our suffering, or inadvertently force others to deal with personal suffering on their own. The church, as a spiritual hospital, the family of God, and a discipleship culture, is to be one-minded and spiritually passionate about its charge to connect to those who suffer in the midst. As you work through this book, you will be guided and inspired to engage in a holistic and practical ministry to those who suffer with disease, disability, and disorder.
Piper, John, Editor. Suffering and the Sovereignty of God
In Suffering and the Sovereignty of God, contributors John Piper, Joni Eareckson Tada, Steve Saint, Carl Ellis, David Powlison, Dustin Shramek, and Mark Talbot explore the many categories of God’s sovereignty as evidenced in His Word. They urge readers to look to Christ, even in suffering, to find the greatest confidence, deepest comfort, and sweetest fellowship they have ever known.
Tada, Joni Eareckson. When God Weeps: Why Our Suffering Matters to the Almighty
If God is loving, why is there suffering? What’s the difference between permitting something and ordaining it? When bad things happen, who’s behind them—God or the devil? When suffering touches our lives, questions like these demand an answer. After more than thirty years in a wheelchair, Joni Eareckson Tada’s experience with suffering gives her a unique understanding of God’s intentions for us in our pain. In When God Weeps, she probes beyond glib answers that fail us in our time of deepest need. With firmness and compassion, she reveals a God big enough to understand our suffering, wise enough to allow it, and powerful enough to use it for a greater good than we can ever imagine.
Tripp, Paul. Suffering: Gospel Hope When Life Doesn’t Make Sense
Weaving together his personal story, pastoral experience, and biblical insights, best-selling author Paul David Tripp helps us trust God in the midst of suffering. He identifies traps to avoid in our suffering and points us instead to comforts to embrace. This raw yet hope-filled book will help you cling to God’s promises when trials come and move forward with the hope of the gospel.
Vroegop, Mark. Dark Clouds, Deep Mercy: Discovering the Grace of Lament
Lament is not just tears or pain in our own soul; lament is inviting Christ to come alongside our casket of loss. Lament is not just a prayer; it is a prayer to God expressing our pain in our fallen world. Lament does not stop at pain; through Christ’s comforting presence, lament enriches our trust in our Father of compassion. Anyone who wants to learn biblically and experientially how to candidly call out to our comforting Father will benefit greatly from Dark Clouds, Deep Mercy. This book restores the lost art of lament in order to help readers discover the power of honest wrestling with God about the questions that come with suffering.
Trials
Adams, Jay. Christ and Your Problems
When we face problems, we often abandon our responsibility to live like a Christian on the grounds that our problem is unique. But is it? Does God ever allow a Christian to face a test that is utterly unique? Even if he does, would that be an adequate excuse? In an unmistakably clear reply, the apostle Paul says, “No.” He tells us in 1 Corinthians 10:13, “There is no trial that has overtaken you but such as is common to men.” Jay Adams reminds us that, as followers of Christ, we can, by His grace, change our attitude toward our problems and face whatever our heavenly Father sends our way.
Adams, Jay. How to Handle Trouble
Trouble is something all people must deal with: the loss of a spouse, a job, one’s health, possessions, freedom. Jay Adams writes, “While God has not yet removed trouble from the Christian or the Christian from trouble, He has, by the Word and His Spirit, given believers all that is necessary to handle trouble successfully.” Focusing on Philippians 1:12-26, where Paul portrays hardship as an opportunity to glorify Christ, Adams presents biblical directives for discerning God’s hand at work in bringing good out of troublesome circumstances, great or small.
Furman, Dave. Kiss the Wave: Embracing God in Your Trials
What does it mean to “kiss the wave?” These words, attributed to nineteenth-century preacher Charles Spurgeon, speak to the Christian’s only hope for perseverance in suffering. What if we can learn to experience the nearness of God in the midst of suffering? What if God intends to work through our trials rather than simply take them away? After living for more than a decade with a debilitating nerve condition in both arms, Dave Furman shows us that God, in His grace, always designs trials for our good—not minimizing the pain, but infusing significance into our suffering.
James, Joel. Help! I Can’t Handle All These Trials
“Who is in control? Why did this happen? What is God doing?” Everyone asks questions like these when they face intense or prolonged trials. The place to find answers is the Bible. In this mini-book, you’ll find the answers God gave Job. They will be just what you need to handle your trials with faith, peace, and hope, rather than doubt, confusion, and despair.
Jones, Robert. When Trouble Shows Up: Seeing God’s Transforming Love
“Where is God in all this? Does He really love me?” Perhaps you are asking questions like these in the midst of tough situations that come your way. You want to trust God’s plan for your life, but when hardship intrudes, it’s often difficult to believe that God is both good and in control. Robert Jones walks you through seven ways Jesus lovingly meets you in your suffering.
Mack, Wayne, and Deborah Howard. It’s Not Fair: Finding Hope When Times Are Tough
This book comes alongside people right where they are and moves them to a place where they can finally rest in God’s attributes of omniscience, omnipotence, love, and justice through the use of sound biblical encouragement.
Join the Conversation
What additional biblical counseling resources would you recommend for suffering and trials?
Don’t forget that encouraging collection of true stories: Storm Clouds of Blessings: True Stories of Ordinary People Finding Hope and Strength in Times of Trouble.
Don’t forget that encouraging collection of true stories: Storm Clouds of Blessings: True Stories of Ordinary People Finding Hope and Strength in Times of Trouble. Especially accessible, solid theology, memorable lessons.